


midnight boy/sunset town

by carafin



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Magic Realism, Slow Burn, bucket lists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 07:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5119403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carafin/pseuds/carafin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Iwaizumi Hajime grows a few chili plants, participates in an eating contest, breaks into a park, and falls in love with a man who doesn't ever sleep - not exactly in that order.</p><blockquote>
  <p><b>5 Reasons Why Iwaizumi Hajime's Flatmate Is A Complete Weirdo (An Incomplete List)</b><br/>1. He's <i>obsessed</i> with that stupid bucket list of his.<br/>2. He's the proud owner of seven truly ugly, criminally hideous movie posters with aliens on them, which he insists on pasting all over the damn living room.<br/>3. He's always stealing Hajime's sweatshirts.<br/>4. Sometimes, he wakes Hajime up for breakfast. At 5AM. On <i>Saturday mornings</i>.<br/>5. He literally never, ever sleeps.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	midnight boy/sunset town

**Author's Note:**

> Translation into [Русский](https://ficbook.net/readfic/5616519) available.
> 
> trigger warning for slight references to/ discussions about death, and vaguely-present-but-not-actually-present references to terminal diseases. if you are still unsure and you do not mind spoilers, more information can be found in the end notes. 
> 
> also, the fact that oiks doesnt have a sister in canon is wilfully ignored o/

‘That’ll be all,’ the landlady says, handing over a bunch of keys to Hajime with a loud jingle, beaming enthusiastically as she gestures towards the vague direction of the living room. ‘What do you think?’

‘It’s fantastic,’ Hajime tells her gratefully, because it is. The apartment is decently sized and lavishly furnished; in fact, room service and an obscenely large price tag might be the only thing distinguishing it from your nearest Shangri ’la. It’s not every day that you get to rent an apartment like that - right in the heart of Tokyo, no less - that doesn’t require you to sell a kidney or two in the black market. The only problem is…

‘So, how’s he like?’ Hajime asks the landlady, trying to sound as casual as possible. ‘You know… my flatmate. The one you mentioned just now.’ The truth is that Hajime had been so overwhelmingly pleased with the discovery of his new flat that he’d completely overlooked the small print in the advertisement (until the landlady had brought it up offhandedly while trying to demonstrate to Hajime how to turn on the heater for the bath), which had been: **_the flat will be shared with another tenant_** , except it’s not exactly a _small_ small print, is it?

‘You mean Oikawa Tooru?’ The landlady asks. ‘Well - I’ve only been contacting him via mail so far, so I’m not very sure. He mentioned that he’s unemployed right now - used to be a lawyer, I think. Paid six months of rent beforehand, though, so that’s a relief. He’ll be moving in next week.’

The name _Oikawa Tooru_ sounds vaguely familiar, but Hajime can’t exactly remember where he’s heard it before. In any case, Hajime’s not going to freak out about it - ever since he got evicted from his previous apartment (his landlord had suddenly decided to _double_ the rent price), he’s had enough of camping at his office cubicle, eating microwaved meals while staring glassy-eyed at his laptop screen, trying to rush out one report after another, and getting weird looks thrown at him from people passing by the corridor - although, come to think of it, eating microwaved meals while staring glassy-eyed at his laptop screen on his own bed might not seem like any significant improvement with regards to his quality of life, but, you know.

Hajime thanks the landlady, before closing the door and taking another long and hard look of the two-room apartment. It’s cosy, but also reasonably spacious - there’s a small kitchen, a clean toilet, a well-furnished living room, _and_ the apartment’s located at the twentieth floor of the building, which means that Hajime’s spared the continuous noise pollution courtesy of Tokyo’s infamous traffic.

Feeling pleased with himself, Hajime begins to unpack his suitcase, and it’s not until halfway through stuffing his sock drawer that the name _Oikawa Tooru_ finally rings a bell in his head. Of course it would; anyone dabbling in Tokyo’s law scene would surely have heard of the infamous Oikawa Tooru - the youngest partner in one of Tokyo’s largest law firms, Oikawa Tooru who’d climbed up the corporate ladders like the ground had been burning below him, only to abruptly quit his job one day, and no one’s ever heard from him since. The news of his disappearance had caused an uproar loud enough to make its way to Hajime’s law firm - _occupational burnout_ , was what people said. Apparently he’d worked like a demon, which may have been the reason why - Oikawa Tooru who was sharp as a knife, who did everything twice as fast and twice as well and seemingly never slept, had succumbed to a nervous breakdown, the kind that plagued even the brightest of promising, young lawyers.

 _What a small world_ , Hajime thinks as he jams a pair of socks into the drawer viciously, disgruntled. _Great_. In addition to dealing with snooty bigshot lawyers during work, he’s going to have to _live_ with one. Briefly, Hajime weighs the prospect of spending his entire life orbiting around pompous assholes against having to forgo both his trustable kidneys for an apartment that doesn’t require more than three hours of commute to and from work every single day. The former wins by a small margin.

‘I knew there was going to be a catch somewhere,’ Hajime murmurs despairingly as he falls face-first onto his pillow, exhausted from a day of strenuous unpacking. Thankfully, he falls into slumber within a few minutes.

 

 

True to the landlady’s words, Oikawa Tooru does move in a few days later - in fact, he ends up arriving two days earlier than scheduled. This in itself is not an issue; the issue is that Hajime has, over the week, gotten slightly _too_ comfortable with living alone and consequently started treating the entire apartment like it is his personal haven. And so his first encounter with Oikawa Tooru goes something like this: Hajime wakes up in his crummy old boxers (give him a break: everyone has that one soft toy or one treasured book or knick-knack or whatever that they can’t relinquish from their childhood; it’s not Hajime’s fault that his happens to be a pair of frayed, ten-year-old boxer patterned with blocks of cheerful-looking cartoon tofu) on the shared living room sofa, hugging his laptop (still turned on and whirring angrily away), a carton of Chinese takeout strewn unceremoniously over the floor in front of him.

The first things Hajime notices are three wilting chilli plants perched atop the windowsill right next to him, each looking more miserable looking than the last; Hajime would not have even realised that they are chili plants, had the pots not been labelled “CHILI PLANTS” on the sides. The next thing he realises is that someone has pasted the most godawful looking movie posters Hajime has ever laid his eyes on; they’re all over the living room, neon-coloured pictures featuring extra-terrestrial life-forms from strange foreign films and horror movies.

There is someone yelling in the kitchen. Hajime squeezes his eyes shut, and wills himself to wake up from what he _knows_ is a nightmare featuring what must be some deep-seated, repressed phobia of chili plants and aliens stemming from his childhood. The yelling stops. Then it starts again. And then it stops. And then it starts again.

Hajime snaps his eyes open, gets up from the sofa, and stalks over to the kitchen - briefly registering the 6:15AM flashing neon green on his digital alarm clock - where a young man is glaring doggedly at what seems to be a vast pot of instant ramen, waving a large spatula around like it is his last line of defence from the horrors of culinary-related despair. He also appears to be addressing the pot of noodles which, by the looks of it, seems to have assumed a life of its own - it’s bubbling and hissing angrily, spewing red-hot soup all over the stove.

‘I graduated with honours from Toudai’s law faculty,’ the man’s saying, although his attempt at damage control is as valiant as it is pathetic. ‘I can handle th-’

There are _bad_ roommates, and then there are roommates that cultivate ugly chili plants, collect truly awful ET movie posters, and are accidental arsonists. Hajime runs over to the stove, and quickly turns the gas off before they end up triggering a mass building evacuation.

He’s barely had time to turn to glare at the perpetrator of the would-be fire accusingly when the man reaches out a hand and gives a dizzyingly charming smile. 'You must be Iwaizumi?'

He presses on before Hajime can even reply. ‘I’m Oikawa Tooru, your new flatmate, it’s very nice to meet you. I’m sorry things got a bit crazy here, maybe I’ll have better luck the next time…’ he trails off. Continues to smile at Hajime.

Briefly, Hajime runs his mind through a few choice responses:  
1\. Do you realise that you almost set the kitchen on fire?  
2\. Why are you cooking instant ramen at 6AM? What do you mean ‘ _the next time’_? Please don’t ever set foot in the kitchen again.  
3\. What the fuck have you been watering your chili plants with? Red Bull?  
4\. Can we talk about your truly awful taste in posters?  
5\. Do you think the landlady will return my deposit if I move out of the apartment right now?

Hajime closes his eyes. Opens them. Decides that it’s too early in the morning for any of this.

‘Iwaizumi Hajime,’ Hajime says curtly, and pulls away from the brief handshake. He gestures towards the store room. ‘The mop’s in there, you can clean up after yourself, I’m going back to sleep-‘

‘But it’s almost daybreak,’ Oikawa has the sheer audacity to say. ‘Why don’t we have breakfast?’

It just dawns upon Hajime that half the gigantic pot of mutant looking ramen had, in fact, been intended for him. He’s two parts touched and one part horrified; then again, ‘he almost poisoned me to death by instant ramen’ would certainly make for a compelling defence when he finally ends up in court for accidentally-on-purposely punching his roommate to oblivion, in addition to ‘he almost set the entire building on fire’ and ‘he woke me up. At six fucking AM in the morning. On a _weekend_.’

‘Sorry, I’ll give this a pass,’ Hajime tells Oikawa. On another day he might have entertained the ridiculous notion, or at least produced a more compelling excuse, but the fact is that Hajime’s running on two hours of sleep after thirty hours of work, and he’s probably going to end up falling face flat into his bowl of soup anyway. He turns away before Oikawa can reply, picks up his laptop, and throws the takeout into the bin, before making his way to his room for five hours of much needed sleep.

 

 

Hajime wakes up at eleven, feeling chipper and refreshed from a good morning’s sleep. There’s something niggling away at the back of his mind, however, and it takes him a while to realise that it’s the guilt from having declined Oikawa’s breakfast invitation that morning, and for his less-than-welcome welcome. Oikawa might have seemed like someone with a few screws loose, but at least he’d bothered to make Hajime breakfast as a friendly gesture. Hajime makes his way out to the living room, expecting to see the other man, but there’s no one to be found.

Instead, there is a packet of Macdonald’s breakfast on the table, along with a note:

 **Sorry for waking you up this morning**  
**But now you owe me one breakfast! ∠( ᐛ」∠)＿**  
**\- Oikawa**

+

 

Hajime is tempted to write off the bizarre encounter with Oikawa as a disturbingly realistic dream, especially when the other man disappears for good over the next few days; the only things persuading him otherwise are the chili plants and movies posters in the living room, and the note from Oikawa that’s sitting triumphantly at a corner of Hajime’s table (what’s with the ridiculous choice of kaomoji, anyway?) On day three, feeling vaguely haunted by the guilt of Saturday’s events - which he technically shouldn’t, since _he_ was the one who’d almost perished from a kitchen fire _not_ of his doing - and his erroneous preconceived notions of Oikawa, Hajime drops by the local florist to purchase some fertilisers, before going back to the apartment and setting to work on giving the chili plants a new lease of life.

His efforts pay off; thankfully, Hajime’s family used to grow an assortment of potted plants at home, and growing a paltry chili plant is a relatively small feat for someone whose family used to cultivate rare orchids. By the time Oikawa returns to the apartment one week later from heaven knows where, the chili plants have begun to grow small, brightly-coloured chili fruit.

‘It’s nothing,’ Hajime tells Oikawa gruffly, when the latter storms into his room, thanking him diffusely while displaying a sort of enthusiasm one would rarely expend over a few tiny members of the capsicum family.

‘You don’t understand,’ Oikawa says. He pulls out a black notebook from his pocket, flips to a page, and strikes out a row of words with a dramatic flourish. ‘That’s one item down my bucket list. _Grow home produce_.’

‘Your bucket list,’ Hajime echoes blankly, feeling stupid for having assumed that the absurdity of the previous week would not carry over to this one.

‘I started out with eggplants,’ Oikawa continues, completely oblivious as to Hajime’s incredulous look. ‘But those were too difficult. Then I went on to bok choy, but that failed too, then onions, then carrots. My local grocer finally told me to grow chili because apparently they’re foolproof. I guess he’s right,’ Oikawa says, with a grin.

Hajime tactfully refrains from mentioning that the chili plants flourished only because of his timely intervention. By now, it seems to be a recurrent theme for Hajime to be left with even more questions and feeling even more confused after each encounter with Oikawa. Currently, Hajime’s questions range from ‘why did you quit your job in the law firm?’ to ‘why do you have a bucket list?’ to the still unresolved ‘can we talk about your truly awful taste in posters?’, but he doesn’t trust himself to speak without sounding overly rude or offensive. And so when Oikawa looks at him, grins and says, ‘I’m going out for a quick dinner, do you want to join me?’, Hajime complies out of curiosity.

 

 

Dinner turns out to be a relatively normal affair, although to be fair Hajime’s notion of what is normal (at least with regards to Oikawa) might leave something to be desired. In any case: dinner is yakisoba and grilled chicken at a quaint little shop a few blocks down the road. The diner - tucked in a small corner in an old apartment building - is as dodgy as a diner can possibly dread to be (Hajime can’t really recognise half the ingredients that have gone into his yakisoba, doesn’t even _want_ to know what they are) but the food is delicious; they tuck in greedily.

Oikawa makes for surprisingly pleasant company; for someone who might - at least at first glance - strike others as somewhat egocentric, Oikawa seems to be bent on prying out every last bit of information from Hajime, from the regular questions (‘what do you work as? what do you like to do in your free time?’) to the more unorthodox ones (‘what do you think about aliens?’ ‘why are you still wearing boxers with cartoon tofu on them?’ and so on.) By the time Oikawa orders a large platter of dango for dessert, they’ve established enough camaraderie for Hajime to voice out at least some the questions that have been pressing in his mind.

‘I spent a week with a friend,’ is what Oikawa says, as nondescript and vague as everything he’s used to answer questions about himself. It’s incredibly frustrating that he should be withholding information from Hajime, given that he probably has intimate knowledge regarding everything in Hajime’s life after the intense, one-sided Q&A.

‘Anyway, I have a lot of free time right now,’ Oikawa says, loftily.

‘You used to work at the Mori Hamada Law Firm, didn’t you,’ Hajime says, unable to stop himself. ‘Why’d you leave your job suddenly, when you were already a partner?’

Oikawa studies Hajime intently for a moment, before bursting into laughter. ‘I forgot - you’re a lawyer too - no wonder you would’ve heard of -’ He gives a small wave of his hand. ‘I decided to take some time off, rest and relax, go travel around a bit, you know? Work was getting a little too much, and I thought it would be a good time to have some fun.’

‘Your bucket list,’ Hajime says. Something tells him that Oikawa isn’t telling him the story in its entirety, but he also knows better than to push it.

‘Right,’ Oikawa says, his expression suddenly brightening. ‘Do you want to see it?’

Hajime nods. Oikawa produces the notebook from within his shirt pocket, and passes it to Hajime. It’s a small notebook, barely twenty pages long, but every available inch of the notebook has been filled with careful scrawling, ranging from ‘sit in a hot air balloon’ to ‘swim in a tub of chocolate milk’ to 'participate in an eating contest'. Hajime flips through the book; for some strange reason, he isn’t surprised to see ‘break into a house’, but he does express dismay at the line after it.

‘Why does it _say cook a seven course dinner_ ,’ Hajime says, trying very hard to keep the horror from his voice.

‘I’ve always wanted to be chef as a kid,’ Oikawa tells him, cheerfully; Hajime’s disapproval seems to be completely lost on him. ‘It was my second favourite occupation, after being a lawyer. Speaking of, are you free tomorrow morning?’

‘Well,’ Hajime begins, suddenly wary, but Oikawa cuts him short.

‘Apparently the shop next door’s going to be holding an eating competition tomorrow, but you can only compete in pairs. What do you say? Your appetite seems pretty good,’ Oikawa says, gesturing at the empty plates and bowls littering the table. ‘You only have to pay two thousand yen to enter, and the winner gets a year’s supply of free food from the shop.’

‘Oh,’ Hajime says. It does sound very tempting. The problem, however -

‘I’ve got a lot of work due this weekend,’ Hajime says, hesitant. ‘If I don’t finish everything tonight I’m not going to be able to -’

‘Come on, tomorrow’s a _Sunday_ ,’ Oikawa tells him. He’s not exactly whining, but whatever he’s doing comes pretty damn close to it, and is equally effective. Those expressive eyes and pouty mouth don’t exactly help, either. ‘Honestly, you need to _live a little_.’

Hajime has vague recollections of Saka-kun at work telling him about the legendary Oikawa Tooru who had, at one point, spent seventy-nine consecutive hours in the office trying to singlehandedly deal with a case that’d stumped a dedicated team of experienced lawyers for three weeks.

‘Right,’ Hajime says, and refrains from rolling his eyes. It’s a completely humourless statement, but Oikawa laughs anyway, probably because he’s aware of the blatant hypocrisy, and Hajime joins in a beat later in spite of himself.

They head back to the apartment together soon after; and if Hajime spends the rest of the night trying to finish the work as soon as possible, it’s definitely not because he wants to join the stupid eating competition with stupid Oikawa.

 

+

 

(Three things Hajime should've known better than to do:  
\- Meeting Oikawa  
\- Befriending Oikawa  
\- Letting Oikawa talk him into joining the eating competition without realising exactly _what sort_ of eating competition it is going to be -)

 

 

‘What the flying fuck, Oikawa,’ Hajime says, trying to keep the desperation from his voice, but very obviously failing to do so, ‘I thought this was supposed to be an eating competition.’

Oikawa turns to him, his face the very picture of innocence. Hajime will never believe in a god again. ‘But it is, Iwa-chan. It’s an _insect_ eating competition.’

He waves a few sticks of fried grasshoppers around, as if to prove his point, and almost pokes Hajime squarely in the face with the skewer. Hajime bristles visibly.

‘Well, I’ve always wanted to join an eating contest,’ Oikawa continues brightly, as if he hasn’t just committed what must be the most devastating betrayal ever witnessed by mankind, ‘and I’ve always wanted to find out how insects taste like, too. Isn’t this great?  This is like, _two-in-one_.’

Hajime ignores Oikawa in favour of looking around with the most impassive face he can muster, trying to find a possible route of escape; around them, a sizeable crowd has already begun to gather around the opening of the shop, jabberingly excitedly and pointing at the mountain of fried grasshoppers, skewered spiders, and plates of maggots that Hajime is certain _are still moving_. He turns back to look at the disgustingly cheerful Oikawa, who _beams_ back at him.

Sometimes, Hajime hates his life.

Unsurprisingly, they don’t have much competition; in fact, their _only_ competition happens to be two men who are seated at the table next to theirs - a guy with pink hair and a curious lack of eyebrows, and another impossibly tall male with a mop of dark, curly hair.

‘Don’t you bail out on me, Makki,’ Mr. Tall-Guy tells Mr. No-Eyebrows. ‘Look, you don’t have to eat anything, all you have to do is stand there and look pretty -’

The guy called Makki throws him a dirty look. ‘I won’t bail. Honestly, Mattsun, I don’t see how you’re gonna win if you’re going to compete with two other people by yourself…’ he glances over to Hajime and Oikawa, before breaking into a shit-eating grin. ‘Although, by the looks of it, you’re not going to be having any serious competition.’

He definitely meant for Hajime to hear it. _What an asshole_.

Before Hajime can say anything, the store owner - a ruddy-looking man in a greasy apron - emerges from the restaurant with a loudspeaker.

He turns and addresses the crowd. ‘The competition will commence in three minutes! But first, let’s give a round of applause to our brave competitors!’

There is a smattering of enthusiastic applause, which diminishes a little after Hajime glares pointedly at the crowd for taking perverse pleasure in celebrating his misfortune.

‘And now,’ the owner continues, all cheerful and enthusiastic as if he isn’t actively playing a part in Hajime’s impending demise, ‘on to the rules of the competition! We’ve prepared three plates of fried grasshoppers, maggots, and spiders for each of our competitors, and the winning team is the one that finishes first. Here’s the fun part: the members from each team are supposed to take turns to eat from the plate, so no cheating by making only one person eat’ - there’s a horrified strangled noise coming from the next table - ‘and you’re going to have _to feed each other_.’

Hajime picks up a skewer containing three nasty looking spiders, shiny and dripping with oil. ‘You’ll start first,’ he growls menacingly at Oikawa, who darts his eyes around in mild panic.

‘Iwa-chan, please be gentle,’ Oikawa begins feebly, the smug smile rapidly disappearing from his face, but the rest of the sentence is drowned by the store owner’s cheerful yelling:

‘On your marks… ready… get set… go!’

 

 

(Three loots of the day:  
\- The promise of a year’s supply of fried insects that will doubtlessly go to waste  
\- An excruciating bout of acute gastroenteritis that will leave Hajime and Oikawa fighting to use the toilet for the week to come  
\- An oddly triumphant feeling on Hajime’s part; he’s occasionally received awards for his academic achievements and volleyball activities as a kid, but this is the first time he’s ever received a certificate for being good at _… eating insects_. Who knew that could be an accomplishment, too?)

 

+

 

Life settles into a predictable routine after that, or as predictable as one’s life can be when living with Oikawa Tooru. They have frequent dinners together, hang out whenever Hajime’s free - Hajime’s only moved to Tokyo recently, so he has practically no friends outside of work - and all in all Oikawa makes for surprisingly pleasant company, even if his schedule is somewhat unorthodox (see: eating dinner at 3AM, see: going for runs in the park at 5AM) and he’s always strangely bent on checking things off that bizarre bucket list of his, occasionally to disastrous effects (see: the time he attempted to dye his hair blue but ended up dyeing literally every surface in the living room _except for his hair_ , see: the time Hajime reached home after a tiring day, itching for a relaxing bath, only to find the entire tub filled to the brim with _Meiji’s 100% Fat-Free High-Calcium Chocolate Milk_.)

The thing is this: of all the rumours Hajime’s heard about Oikawa Tooru - that he’s a ruthless, no-good, vicious lawyer, that he’s inconsiderate and egocentric, that he’s a shameless Casanova - the only one that seems to actually hold any true weight is the one that is the most logically improbable. Hajime’s been observing Oikawa for a whole month now, and by now he’s almost certain that _Oikawa Tooru literally doesn’t sleep._ He’s always bustling around doing one thing or another, jumping from one project to the next armed with an inexhaustible supply of restless energy; the few times Hajime had woken up in the middle of the night to use the washroom, he’d found Oikawa in the living room, watching a movie on TV with the lights turned off. And then there’s the pertinent fact that Hajime has _literally never ever seen Oikawa asleep._

This would explain a number of things: his seemingly superhuman achievements back in his law firm, why he’s always up at ungodly hours in the morning doing inane things like _cooking breakfast and singing to trashy pop music at 5AM_ (see also: the bane of Hajime’s existence), how he often has plans that involve him going out of the apartment in the middle of the night. Of course, the thought’s plenty absurd, but Hajime can’t think of any other logical reason to account for this collection of strange, unexplained phenomena.

‘You know, you should try to sleep more,’ Hajime tells Oikawa one day, when they’re sitting around the table stuffing their faces with yakisoba and agedashi tofu. ‘I never seem to see you sleep.’

The corners of Oikawa’s lips quirk up, as if he’s endlessly amused by Hajime’s heartfelt advice. ‘What am I hearing, Iwa-chan? Is this concern? Are you worried that I might run out of my finite well of youthful of energy and - ‘

‘Oikawa, I’m serious.’

‘Aww,’ Oikawa begins, reaching out his chopsticks to steal a piece of tofu from Hajime’s plate. It’s something that Hajime would usually condone - although not without some resistance and a few dirty glares - but this time he swats it away with his spoon. Just to make a point. Oikawa tilts his head up to glare pointedly at Hajime, but he sees the way Hajime is looking at him, and something about his expression shifts.

There’s a sudden bout of silence, broken only by Oikawa scraping absently at the plate with the tines of his fork.

‘Iwa-chan,’ Oikawa says, suddenly, his voice too carefully neutral for it to be anything but casual, his face impassive but his eyes sharp and wary and _weary_ , ‘Iwa-chan, what if I told you that I don’t sleep? That I’ve never slept before in my life? Will you believe me?’

Hajime knows that, logically speaking, it’s physiologically impossible for anyone to never have slept in their lives, to have survived twenty-three years without sleep. That anyone can ever be awake for twenty-four hours a day, day after day, and not succumb to death. Hajime knows all these, knows his basic biology and anatomy and physiology, and yet -

‘I believe you,’ Hajime says, eventually, because he does. There is something about Oikawa’s particular brand of eccentricity that Hajime’s never been able to quite put a finger on - the relentless, inexhaustible buzz of tired energy, the almost-wistfulness on Oikawa’s face whenever Hajime bids him _goodnight_ , the way Oikawa chases after new and increasingly bizarre ways to pass his time with the desperation reminiscent of a cat chasing after its own tail - 

‘I mean - fuck, I don’t even believe myself for saying this, but I believe _you_.’

‘Then,’ Oikawa says, putting down his fork onto the table, ‘there you have it. That’s the whole truth. It’s been like that, since I was born.’

‘You… don’t sleep,’ Hajime echoes, faintly. It’s one thing to suspect something as absurd as this, but it’s another thing to have his suspicions confirmed. ‘What - wait - why can’t you?’

Oikawa shrugs. ‘It’s been like this since I was a kid. I got it from my mother, who got it from my grandmother. I’ve never slept a wink in my entire life. I suppose it’s great, right, because I get all this extra time other people would’ve spent on sleeping.’ Oikawa’s face is impassive in a way that feels strangely dissonant from his words. ‘Exams were a breeze back when I was in school, and when I started work everyone thought I was a genius.’

‘But do you _like_ it?’ Hajime asks, unable to stop himself.

‘Well,’ Oikawa says.  ‘I’m neutral about it, I guess. It’s been like that since I was born, so it’s like, asking me about how I feel towards my big toe or my left arm or something… It used to be lonely as a kid, so I’d make stories about aliens visiting me at night. That was fun, I guess.’

There’s a pause, before Oikawa breaks into a grin and deftly reaches out to steal the last piece of tofu from Hajime’s plate. ‘Gotcha, Iwa-chan,’ Oikawa says around a mouthful of food, waving his fork around triumphantly.

‘Close your mouth, Asskawa,’ Hajime murmurs, but there is no real heat behind his syllables. Hajime looks around at the living room; it might just be a trick of the light, but the movie posters plastered all over the walls suddenly don’t seem so unbearable, after all.

 

 

In the end, the knowledge of Oikawa’s peculiar _ability_ doesn’t really make a difference to how Hajime acts around him. They still hang out on the weekends whenever Hajime has the free time - or rather, whenever Oikawa succeeds in cajoling Hajime into making free time for him, which is more often than is good for Hajime’s career advancement. They still have dinner together on a regular basis, and Oikawa will still insist on stealing pieces of Hajime’s food.

It’s just that - now, when Hajime’s rushing through his deadlines the into the wee hours of the morning (which is almost every other day, really) he’ll find himself making his way to Oikawa’s room every now and then, where they’ll lay around and scream trashy pop music together at the top of their lungs through mouthfuls of leftover pizza. Now, when he hears Oikawa bustling around preparing to go for his morning runs at 5AM in the morning, he might decide to pull himself out of bed to accompany Oikawa. 

And if Hajime finds himself dozing off on the subway more frequently than before, finds himself taking small naps in the toilet cubicles in between successive meetings during work - well, Oikawa really doesn’t have to know.

 

+

 

On rare occasions, they have visitors. Or rather, _Hajime_ gets visitors; sometimes his family members and relatives might drop by, or he might entertain old friends who happen to be visiting Tokyo. For someone as exuberant and outgoing as Oikawa, it’s a little surprising that he has never brought anybody home - that is, until one day.

What happens is this: Hajime wakes up at 3AM on a Wednesday morning to a heated conversation taking place in the living room. Even through his closed bedroom door - strange, he’d left it open before he fell asleep; did Oikawa close it for him? - Hajime can make out a lady’s angry voice ( _a friend? an ex-colleague? a jilted lover?_ ); he reflexively covers his ears with his pillows before it registers in his mind that Oikawa has just brought a visitor over, for the first time in the eight months they’ve spent together. How strange.

Feeling like the worst sort of person for eavesdropping, Hajime walks over to the door and rests his ear against the door.

‘…Can’t run away forever, Tooru,’ Angry Lady is saying. ‘You’re not _making full use of life_ or whatever you’re calling it, this is _bullshit_ \- ‘

‘What, and working my ass off at work and being a great lawyer and making a million yen a month is supposed to help me make full use of my life? What the fuck do you know about what _I’m_ doing with my _life_?’ Oikawa lashes out, his voice equal parts vicious and frustrated and brittle, like the jagged edge of a thin blade; Hajime flinches.

‘Damn it, Tooru, you _know_ that’s not what I mean. I don’t give a crap about how much you’re earning, it’s just - look, you haven’t gone home ever since mom’s funeral and it’s been, what, almost a year already? I wanted to give you space but now you’re just - you’re just hiding away from the truth and running away and pretending that - that - that everything is _normal_ and we’re _normal_ and - ’

There’s the sound of someone drawing in their breath sharply.

‘Tooru,’ the lady continues, her voice heavy with sadness and resignation. ‘Tooru, I know everything’s difficult now, but I’m your _sister_ and I just want the best for you. You know that.’

And then: silence for a while, interrupted only by the sound of the curtains flapping from a sudden breeze. Finally, after a few minutes, there’s the sound of the main door softly clicking shut.

Oikawa has a sister, Hajime knows that much. There’s a family photo stuffed somewhere within Oikawa’s bottommost sock drawer; Hajime had come across it by chance one day, when he’d been rummaging through Oikawa’s clothes in search of his own. (Oikawa has a terrible habit of borrowing Hajime’s sweatshirts whenever he feels like it, which unfortunately is pretty much _all the damn time_ , and then leaving it in his own wardrobe.) It was, by all accounts, a lovely family photo: an attractive man and an attractive woman and two attractive children, a boy and a girl, the sort of family Hajime would expect to have a white picket fence and an immaculately kept garden and steaming bowls of miso soup for breakfast. And yet, even then - Hajime could not help but wonder if Oikawa had intended to hide the photo, not so much from others, but from himself.

Hajime reaches down to turn the doorknob, before pausing and slowly walking back to his bed. He tosses and turns under his bedsheets for a few more minutes, gets up, thinks better of it, lies down again. He repeats this for a few more times before marching to the door in frustration, cracking it open to ensure that Oikawa’s sister has disappeared, and then finally making his way out of the room.

Oikawa is seated cross-legged on the floor, unmoving, with an arm rested on the coffee table; there’s a bottle of sake to him, uncapped and half-finished. He barely stirs as Hajime makes his way out to the living room. Hajime hovers over the table for a few minutes, unsure as to how to proceed, before plopping down unceremoniously next to Oikawa.

‘How rude of you, Oikawa,’ Hajime says, all brash and brusque because this is how they do it, brash and brusque is how they communicate and Hajime doesn’t know how to deal with an Oikawa that’s sombre and silent and sad even if he should know, he _should_. ‘Drinking my sake without even inviting me along.’

Hajime reaches out, grabs hold of the sake bottle, and takes a large swig. It travels down his throat like a lump of coal, and Hajime learns the hard way that one should not, under any circumstances, assume false bravado and down a quarter bottle of sake when they 1. are barely able to pry their eyes open from a terrible case of sleep deprivation, and 2. have not had anything to eat for the past ten hours. He starts to splutter, which develops into a bout of furious hacking. At this, Oikawa finally tilts his head up to look at Hajime.

‘Really, Iwa-chan, I figured you’d suck at holding your liquor but I didn’t think that you’d suck this much,’ Oikawa tells him; his tone is breezy but his eyes are curiously shiny when Hajime catches his gaze, and Hajime has to remind himself: _don’t look away, don’t look away_. Oikawa’s holding his liquor pretty well for someone who’s downed half a bottle of sake over a span of ten minutes, but Hajime looks closer and realises that Oikawa’s eyes are unnaturally bloodshot and his hands are shaking.

Hajime readies himself with a scathing retort, but a look at Oikawa and the words die at the tip of his tongue. He sighs. ‘Hey, Oikawa?’

Oikawa peers at Hajime through half-lidded eyes.

‘You know, you can talk to me about it,’ Hajime tells him, gently setting the bottle of sake down onto the table. ‘Or you can keep it to yourself. I don’t mind either way, but just - just know that I’m here, okay? I’m here if you need someone to talk to or - I don’t know, cry to, or whatever. I’m not gonna judge.’

Oikawa studies Hajime for a while, his expression inscrutable. Hajime half-expects him to laugh, or make a dismissive remark, or even cry; Hajime’s not very sure, but he can only hope that it might, some way or another, make Oikawa feel better.

Oikawa grabs the sake from the table and tilts the mouth of the bottle towards Hajime’s direction, its contents dangerously close to sloshing out. ‘You’re a cool guy,’ he announces, his words slurring just a little towards the end. The effects of the alcohol must be finally kicking in now; Oikawa’s face has started to flush a deep shade of red. ‘You’re really cool sometimes, Iwa-chan, you know that?’

Hajime knows that it’s probably the alcohol talking, but it doesn’t stop him from breaking into a grin. ‘You too, shittykawa. Even if half the time you’re the antithesis of cool.’

‘I’m the _antithesis_ of the _antithesis_ of cool,’ Oikawa protests, which of course is cue for Hajime to gently pry the bottle away from Oikawa’s hands. Oikawa makes a disapproving noise as Hajime tilts his head backwards and finishes the remaining sake in the bottle.

‘True friends damage their livers together,’ Hajime tells Oikawa, his head pounding angrily as his body tries to adjust itself to the sudden spike in alcohol streaming through his bloodstream.

‘I’m not even drunk,’ Oikawa insists, so certain in his statement that it’s almost adorable.

‘You might not be,’ Hajime says, feeling the room spin a little even as he speaks, ‘but, uh, I think I am. Or at least on the way to be.’

Oikawa laughs. ‘This is what you get for playing hero with your shitty alcohol tolerance, Iwa-chan. I _told_ you I wasn’t drunk.’

‘I know you weren’t drunk,’ Hajime tells Oikawa, before breaking into a series of hiccups. ‘But you were sad.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I couldn’t take the… take the sad away.’

‘ _Hajime_ ,’ Oikawa says, his voice so soft that Hajime’s eyes start to sting a little.

‘Sorry,’ Hajime murmurs, which is probably the last thing he says before he shuts his eyes and leans the entirety of his body weight against Oikawa. He feels something warm against his cheek; he must’ve swayed and leaned onto Oikawa’s shoulders, at some point. Things are blissfully silent after that; Hajime finally succumbs to the cumulative effects of fatigue and alcohol, and the rest of the night passes by in a hazy blur.

 

 

Hajime wakes up the next day curled on the sofa with a blanket on his chest, a glass of water on the table next to him, and a bag of Macdonald’s breakfast next to two tablets of aspirin.

He washes down the aspirin with a large gulp of coke. And then, an inevitability: there is a dull ache in his chest that has nothing to do with the obscene amount of sake he’d downed the night before. Hajime realises, with a heart that is as heavy as it is hopeful, that this ache will be here to stay for a long time.

 

+

 

They don’t speak of the incident again. Hajime never found out what Oikawa had been arguing about with his sister that day, and Oikawa doesn’t bring up anything about his family after that. Things remain reasonably peaceful for a while - that is, until two months later, when Oikawa suddenly slams down his chopsticks halfway through dinner and announces, ‘It’s my birthday today.’

Growing up, birthdays have never been a main feature in the Iwaizumi household, so Hajime calmly spears a fried gyoza from his plate and says, ‘Alright, happy birthday, Oikawa.’

Oikawa works his mouth into a well-worn pout, before leaning forward and practically shoving his face onto Hajime’s. (It shouldn’t make Hajime’s heart dance funny beats, but it does.) ‘It’s my birthday, Iwa-chan. You are _obliged_ to give me a _present_ for my birthday.’

‘Take my red sweatshirt then,’ Hajime tells him, trying to appear as unimpressed as possible. ‘That can be your present, since you’re practically wearing it everywhere anyway - ‘

Oikawa wrinkles his nose. ‘You’re so stingy, Iwa-chan. I don’t want your crummy sweatshirt, I want you to bring me out on your motorbike.’

‘My motorbike?’ Hajime repeats incredulously; they’ve been through this issue at least ten times over the past few months. Oikawa’s hell-bent on riding Hajime’s motorbike despite not actually having a riding license, and Hajime has, out of worry for his bike’s wellbeing and his duty as an upstanding citizen of Tokyo city, declined his requests every single time.

‘I want you to send me to a place tonight,’ Oikawa tells him, all sly and mysterious, which is probably cue for Hajime to beg him for more details, not that Hajime is even remotely curious or anything. Hajime resists the strong urge to roll his eyes; he considers for a few moments before relenting, partly to prevent Oikawa from whining endlessly about the bike for the foreseeable future, but also because it is Oikawa’s birthday - the pathetic fact is that Hajime has been increasingly acquiescent towards Oikawa’s numerous ridiculous requests over the past few months, whether he wants to admit it or not.

‘Fine,’ Hajime says, to Oikawa’s delight. He leans back against the chair and sighs. The only consolation amidst this whole affair is that Hajime will be there to keep an eye on Oikawa, and so surely nothing can go _too_ wrong -

 

 

\- which, if history is of any guide, is of course complete and utter bullshit. Hajime is not one bit surprised to find himself standing at the entrance to [Ueno Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ueno_Park) five hours later, next to a very excitable Oikawa, shivering in the cold night air.

‘What the hell do you want to do, Oikawa,’ Hajime asks, although he suspects he already knows the answer. ‘The park’s _closed_ after eleven at night.’

‘Let’s get into the park, Iwa-chan,’ Oikawa says, grabbing onto Hajime’s wrists excitedly.

‘Oikawa, it’s _2AM in the morning_ ,’ Hajime informs him, aghast.

‘My point exactly, Iwa-chan!’

Oikawa breaks into a run without loosening his grip on Hajime’s wrists, dragging him along. After a while, they reach a spot at the exterior wall where it’s low enough such that anyone can jump down from the top without breaking their neck. Without a word, Oikawa leaps onto the lower branches of a tree, pulls himself to the top, and swings himself onto the wall with ease.

‘Your turn,’ he screams, waving so wildly from atop the wall that Hajime fears for his life.

‘You’re mad,’ Hajime tells him, and just a year ago he would’ve actually meant those words, would’ve probably left Oikawa to his own devices and rode away with the bike by himself. But the fact is that, over the past year, Hajime has: participated in an insect eating contest, grown all sorts of strange and curious vegetables on his windowsill, spent five hours scrubbing his toilet floor clean of chocolate milk, regularly engaged in numerous unspeakably ridiculous activities, and had more fun than he’s ever had in his entire life. And so, a minute later, Hajime finds himself landing butt-first onto a grass patch, right next to Oikawa.

‘What the hell, Iwa-chan, you actually did it,’ Oikawa tells him, and he looks more pleased at the fact that Hajime had joined him in his escapade than anything else. He drapes an arm around Hajime’s shoulder, laughing uncontrollably, and thumps Hajime on his back. ‘I’m so proud of you, Iwa-chan.’

‘You’re the legendary lawyer here,’ Hajime mutters, cheeks warm and heart beating staccato against his chest. ‘You’d better be ready to bail us out if we end up getting prosecuted for breaking into a damn park.’

‘No one’s going to catch us,’ Oikawa singsongs, before flinging his arms out into the air and screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘this is great! _Best birthday present ever_.’

Hajime shakes his head, but laughs and follows him anyway. They spend the next hour wandering around aimlessly in the park, before collapsing breathlessly on a grassy patch underneath a cluster of cherry blossom trees.

‘It’s going to be really pretty when the trees next spring,’ Oikawa remarks to no one in particular. There’s a slight breeze that’s playing at Oikawa’s hair, Hajime notices. It makes him want to reach out and touch it. Hajime shuts his eyes.

‘We used to come here all the time, as a family,’ Oikawa continues, after a pause. ‘We’d come here during cherry blossom viewing season, and I loved that as a kid. We’d go for picnics, and I’d play hide and seek with my sister. Kaa-san and I used to collect the fallen petals and store them in huge glass jars, and keep them at home.’

Hajime turns to his side; Oikawa is staring, face up, at the skies, his expression soft as it is wistful. Hajime swallows; his stomach feels like there are snakes knotted in them, and the snakes are all _writhing_.

‘Let’s go see them together, then,’ he tells Oikawa eventually. ‘Next time, when they bloom in spring.’

Oikawa tilts his head slightly to the side, looks at Hajime, and smiles. ‘Yeah? I’d like that, Iwa-chan.’

The next few seconds pass in silence. A few leaves have fallen down from the trees above them, dried and yellow and wrinkly, nestling themselves into Oikawa’s hair, falling onto his cheek and forehead. For a moment, Hajime’s gaze is distracted by the bits of grass stuck onto the back of Oikawa’s head, the way Oikawa’s hair curls funnily from where the damp has reached it. Without thinking, Hajime reaches out and gingerly picks the leaves trapped in Oikawa’s lashes.

It’s a small gesture, but suddenly the atmosphere shifts.

‘Iwa-chan?’ Oikawa asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

Hajime freezes; not from the suspense of _are-we-going-to-kiss_ , not even from the desire to reach out to kiss Oikawa then, even if he could burn from that sort of want alone. No, Hajime freezes because he hears the unfamiliar fear and uncertainty in Oikawa’s voice, hates that Oikawa should sound so doubtful and - and _vulnerable_ , hates that he doesn’t understand _why_.

For a moment, Oikawa looks inexplicably torn between - between something, something that Hajime doesn’t and probably can’t understand, but then Oikawa suddenly snaps up from the ground and says: ‘Hey Iwa-chan, let’s play Never Will I Ever.’

The tense, stifling atmosphere from a moment ago dissipates as quickly as it came. Hajime doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or upset; he settles on _extremely confused_. ‘The _hell_ is that?’

‘You know when people play Never Have I Ever? This game is kind of similar, but you’ll have to talk about things that you’re never, ever, _ever_ gonna do, and you win if it’s something the other person is willing to do. Alright, I’m gonna start. Never will I ever wear boxers with tofu print on them.’

Hajime smacks Oikawa’s arm. He doesn’t know what Oikawa is trying to achieve with the game, but he decides to humour him anyway. ‘That’s fucking low. Okay… never will I ever eat fried insects again.’

‘Never will I ever fall asleep.’

‘ _Cheater_. Never will I ever let you use the kitchen to cook instant ramen.’

‘Iwa-chan, that’s just _mean,_ I pay as much rent as you do! Um… never will I ever ride a rollercoaster.’

‘Never will I ever collect shitty movie posters with ETs on them,’ Hajime says, and squirms away when Oikawa tries to poke him in the stomach.

‘Never will I ever dye my hair.’

‘Never will I ever wear a fedora.’

‘Never will I ever eat yoghurt.’

‘Never will I ever download snapchat on my phone.’ Oikawa’s been pestering Hajime for months to get snapchat, but Hajime _obviously_ has better things to do in life than entertain badly decorated photos containing Oikawa’s face fifty times a day.

‘Ass,’ Oikawa says, but his voice sounds a little funny, like he’s got a cold or the flu or something. ‘My turn! Never will I ever get a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Or fall in love.’

‘Oh,’ Hajime says, before he can stop himself.

Hajime wants to ask: _why?_ Wants to ask: _is it because of just now,_ _is it because of_ me _._ But Oikawa had thrown the statement out so carelessly, so casually, that it would not have made a difference if he’d said ‘Never will I ever fly a kite’, or ‘Never will I ever eat an octopus’. And so it would also not have been any clearer if Oikawa had said, ‘let’s not talk about this’.

So, Hajime doesn’t talk about it.

‘Never will I ever take a cruise,’ Hajime responds, eventually, but his voice comes out oddly distant. They exchange a few more words before settling into an uneasy silence for the next hour, and it’s close to 4AM when they finally begin to make their way back out of the park; the trip back home is remarkably quiet.

For the first time in a long while, Hajime finds himself speeding back to their apartment on the highway, road safety and speeding tickets be damned. The sensation of the wind beating against his skin - so forceful that it _hurts_ \- is a welcome one; it makes Hajime forget that there is someone wrapping their arms around his waist and leaning themselves against the small of Hajime’s back.

If it meant that Hajime could forget everything - not just the terrible conversation from the park, but even beyond that, back to their very first encounter in the stupid kitchen where stupid Oikawa had burned the stupid pot of noodles - if it meant that he could forget all of that, then Hajime would gladly ride on forever.

 

+

 

It is inevitable, then, that things change after that. There’s a major project taking place at work, and for the next few weeks Hajime spends most of his time in his office - nothing like writing report after report, into the wee hours of the morning, to make yourself forget that you are, in fact, running away from a hopelessly doomed and very possibly one-sided relationship. On his part, Oikawa keeps himself busy doing things that Hajime knows better than to ask after; he’s always away at night and on weekends, which Hajime supposes he should be thankful for.

This goes on until two months later, when Hajime returns home to an apartment devoid of all signs that a certain Oikawa Tooru once lived in it. Hajime tries calling him - once, twice, three times, and is not surprised when nobody picks up the phone. He calls the landlady, who tells him that Oikawa had suddenly decided to move out of the apartment for good.

Hajime shouldn’t be upset, really. The fact remains that Oikawa had, in fact, bade his farewell a long time ago, right from that awful day in the park. In a way, life doesn’t change _that_ much: their daily dinners have dwindled to practically nothing, and Hajime doesn’t ever see Oikawa during the weekends anyway, to say nothing of hanging out. If anything, his life will probably take a turn for the better now: no more asshole cooking up a storm at 3AM in the morning, no more godawful singing at unholy hours of the night, and for the first time in more than a year, Hajime doesn’t have to spend his time digging around for stolen sweatshirts, or wake up to horrendous movie posters every morning.

Life goes on, just as Hajime knows that it will, whether Oikawa is around or not. Hajime doesn’t do that stupid thing where he drinks his liver to the death, or go frequenting clubs in search of a rebound, or stock up on chocolates and sad, drippy romantic movies, or anything like that.

And yet - sometimes, the heart does not forget. Sometimes, Hajime will find himself ordering two servings of yakisoba home for dinner, only to reach the apartment to realise, _oh_. Sometimes, Hajime will wake up at 5AM, inexplicably itching to go for a run. Sometimes, Hajime will catch a glimpse of brown hair in the crowd, only to realise that he’s been staring at a total stranger, and turn away. Sometimes, Hajime will walk past a cherry blossom tree on his way home from work, and remember.

 

+

 

It is a few months later when an unexpected visitor knocks on the apartment door.

‘Hello, you’re…’ Hajime says to the lady, and trails off, because he could recognise these brown eyes, the proud turn of nose, anywhere. ‘You’re Oikawa’s sister?’

‘You must be Tooru’s flatmate,’ the lady says, and smiles. Hajime recognises her voice from the last time. ‘My name is Tama.’

‘I’m Iwaizumi; it’s very nice to meet you.’ Hajime hovers at the door, hesitant. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I’m looking for Tooru,’ Tama tells him. ‘He came back home a while ago, but he suddenly vanished again last week. I was wondering if you’d know where he might be.’

Hajime shakes his head, ignores the dread twisting in his chest. ‘No? I haven’t heard from him since September last year.’

Tama studies him intently for a moment, before tilting her head slightly to the side, her mannerisms a perfect mirror of Oikawa’s. ‘You’re the owner of the red sweatshirt, aren’t you?’

Hajime stares at her. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘The red sweatshirt,’ Tama repeats, slowly. ‘The one that Tooru keeps in his wardrobe but never wears. I accidentally misplaced it while sorting his wardrobe once, and he went _ballistic_. Mentioned something about it being Iwa-chan’s.’

It’s the sweatshirt Hajime promised he’d give Oikawa for his birthday. It was old and frayed and ugly, which is why Hajime probably didn’t realise that it was missing, until now. His breath catches in his throat.

‘I had no idea he’s still holding onto it,’ Hajime manages eventually, in a strangled voice.

‘Sounds to me you guys were a set.’ Tama smiles, but she sounds a little sad. ‘Tooru used to tell me everything. Now I’ve to resort to digging out information about him behind his back.’

‘We weren’t - we weren’t a _set_ ,’ Hajime says, and he knows that he might be oversharing but it’s _those_ brown eyes staring at him, those wide set eyes that are all too understanding and all too pretty and _all too fucking familiar_. His rubs his face with the heel of his hands. ‘Maybe we were almost a set. Maybe. I almost - I almost thought we could be one, but then he got really weird and then he just left one day, for no reason at all.’

‘Sounds like he was scared,’ Tama says, absently rubbing her hands on the sleeves of her cardigan. ‘He’s always been like that, but it got a lot worse after kaa-san left.’

‘ _Scared_?’

‘Scared that he’ll end up like kaa-san, maybe.’ Tama looks at Hajime. ‘Iwaizumi, you’ve heard about the sleeplessness that runs in my family, haven’t you?’

Hajime nods.

‘Well… it’s not an infallible thing, and there’s a price to pay for it. You know how we get twice as many waking hours as normal people? Well, our natural lifespans are halved in return for that. Kaa-san and my grandmother both died soon after they turned forty.

‘Kaa-san was always close to Tooru, so her death took a huge toll on him; think he went a bit nuts after that, quit his job and wrote out this whole wacky bucket list and everything. Cut himself from the family, too. Anyway, he’s an idiot, so he probably thinks that staying away from you will probably spare both of you the grief when he kicks the bucket early, y’know?’

In that instant, everything becomes clear; all of a sudden, Hajime understands - the torn look on Oikawa’s face back in the park, why he’d decided to run away, his resignation from the law firm after his mother’s death, his ridiculous fixation on a bucket list, _everything_.

‘That _idiot_ ,’ Hajime hisses angrily before he can stop himself.

‘My little brother can be a prized idiot,’ Tama agrees heartily, but she sounds more fond than anything else. She rests a hand on Hajime’s shoulder. ‘You know, you’re free to do whatever you want. I’m definitely not saying that you guys must get back together or anything…’ She trails off, a thoughtful expression on her face. ‘But I’m just saying that if you still want to be with him, I can assure you that he hasn’t forgotten about you yet.’

Hajime’s gripping on the door frame so tight, his knuckles have turned a deathly shade of white. ‘Are you - you’re sure of that?’

‘You want to know why I know?’ Tama smiles. ‘He barely packed anything before he left this time; all his jackets and sweatshirts are still in the wardrobe. The only thing he brought along with him was your sweatshirt.’

 

+

 

That night, Hajime takes out his phone, and dials a familiar number.

 

_Hey, Oikawa?_

_Listen - I don’t know where you are now, or what you’re doing, or if you’re even alive now, for fuck’s sake, but you’d better be or else I’m gonna kick your sorry ass to purgatory and back and - yeah, so, anyway. I hope this message reaches you, wherever you are._

_I hope you’re doing well. I bet you’re still doing crazy things even as I’m talking right now. You weren’t even halfway through the list in your notebook when you left, you dumbass. Did you do more stupid things while you were gone? God, I can just imagine it._

_Your sister came by today, and she told me about - about your family, and the... and the sleeping curse, or whatever the hell you guys call it. The point is - what the hell, Oikawa? I don’t care about that at all. I don’t give a shit if you’re gonna kick the bucket fifteen or fifty years down the road. You know, Oikawa - I might just walk out right now and get knocked down by a car, right? Or I might choke on a fishbone over dinner and die. Or I might live till I’m a hundred and one and be that irritatingly hardy great-grand-uncle that doesn’t ever die... aargh… I’m babbling now, aren’t I. What I want to say is that - is that it doesn’t matter, you know, how long I’m gonna live, because whatever it is it isn’t going to stop me from - from all_ this _\- from wanting to be with you, dammit._

_Let’s say you have fifteen more years, alright. So what? That’s fifteen years for you - for us to - to go break into a hundred more parks and eat lots of fried spiders and hang out at 3AM and go running at stupid times of the day. It’s worth it, Oikawa. These are worth it, you know? For the ending. Whatever and whenever it may be._

_Hey, Oikawa? I miss you. I heard the cherry blossoms in Tokyo are going to bloom next month. Strange, huh? That’s almost a month earlier than usual._

_If you don’t mind, I’d really like to view them together with you._

_It’s okay if you aren’t ready to come back right now, but when you are, I’ll be waiting._

 

 

+

 

As forecasted, Tokyo’s first bloom takes place on the twenty third of March. On that day, Hajime wakes up at the crack of dawn, rummages around in his storage room for his - spanking new, completely unused - picnic mat, packs himself a book, a few onigiri, throws in a few milk breads for good measure, and makes his way to Ueno Park. Almost a year has passed since he’d last visited the park, and Hajime must admit that it _does_ look slightly foreign in the day - lovely, but in a different way. Hajime finds a good spot underneath a sakura tree, and lays out his mat.

Nothing remarkable happens on the first day, and the second, and the day after that, and the day after _that_. Hajime returns to the same spot anyway; if nothing else, the sakura blossoms are really, really lovely. On the fifth day - the day when the blossoms are scheduled for full bloom - Hajime sees a man standing by himself in the distance.

He has an empty glass jar in his hands, and there are pink petals caught in his mop of messy, brown hair. When Hajime catches his eyes, the man smiles, and waves. He does not turn away. 

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is the product of a stray thought that eventually assumed a life of its own ("fanon and canon depicts oikawa as someone who often forgoes sleep in favour of work so what if??? we extrapolated this??? and made it such that oikawa _literally doesnt sleep at all_???") and personal experiences. there are references to the themes of death, agency, and borrowed time in this fic. while no specific illness was explicitly named, there are some inherent - if very slight - parallels to the natural history of a terminal disease. if that might squick you, please turn away.
> 
> thank you for reading!


End file.
